You may have heard of a somewhat new concept called "Flexible Dieting", also known as If It Fits Into
Your Macros (IIFYM). Basically, it is a system where you create a food map of
macronutrients (protein, carbs, fat) for your daily consumption of energy based
on your daily needs. We will talk about how to calculate that in a minute.
“Your needs”
could be anything from a weight cut, to a weight gain, or simply weight
maintenance where you just want to become leaner but aren't necessarily looking to lose fat. You can fill those
grams of macros with whatever foods you wish as long as you hit the numbers
determined by your food map. This allows a bit more freedom in your
diet which is good for numerous reasons. It doesn’t make any food “off
limits” or “bad”. This in turn, gets rid of the guilt that comes along
with eating something that is “forbidden”. At times, (at least for me), when I am eating "clean" foods the majority of the time, as opposed to "dirty" foods, I begin to feel very deprived and oftentimes, STARVED.
Also, because it
allows you to eat literally anything you are craving as long as it is done
within the parameters of your daily macro allotment, it alleviates the “binge
day” or “cheat day” that is so often found on other diets. You know, the
one day where you spend your entire day eating every single food that you
weren’t allowed to have on your diet all week? Usually, people will
consume 3-4x the calories they do on a normal basis during these days.
This takes your body about 3-5 days to recover from and can leave you
feeling pretty bad physically, and sometimes back to square one with your progress for the week!
So how the heck
do we figure out what we need to eat during the day in order to meet our goals?
Find the macros calculator HERE. When entering
your information, you’ll want to select the “Total Body Weight Formula”. Once
you determine what your daily caloric intake should be in order to meet your
goals, you’ll see 4 boxes that you can customize in order to meet your needs.
Most of us are going to choose the “Fat Loss” number and it’s up to you if you
want to go with the “suggested, aggressive, or reckless” number of calories—I
actually averaged the 3 and that’s the calorie number I am currently using.
Remember, we can adjust this based on how you’re feeling too—this isn’t a set
in stone number that works for absolutely everyone! Once you determine your number, you will plug
that calorie number into the My Fitness Pal app, under the “goals” section.
Also in the goals
section of the app, you’ll want to set your daily parameters for Carbs,
Protein, and Fat. I always start with the protein because that’s the easiest.
It is recommended that you consume between .8 and 1 gram of protein based on
your body weight. So for example, for someone who weighs 150 pounds, they
should consume between 120-150 grams of protein per day. Once you determine
that number, you want to adjust your percentages of macros until you hit that
number or close to it. (This all sounds very confusing but will make sense once
you do it!). Then adjust your fat and carb percentages by splitting your
remaining percentages.
So here is an
example of mine—I consume 1,794 calories per day (this is based on a fat loss
goal), my protein intake is 40% of my intake, and is it 179 grams. My carbs and
fat intake is split at 30% each, making them 134 grams and 60 grams,
respectively. Once you have those numbers entered, you are all set!
So how to do we
track all of this stuff? My Fitness Pal has just about every food under the sun
entered into it, and all you have to do is enter the food and portion you’ve
eaten under the correct meal/snack for that day, but here is where the tricky
part comes in. In order to make sure we are fueling up with the healthiest
things we can, we MUST plan our meals as much as possible. This takes time,
dedication, and commitment, but will be so worth it in the end! I highly
recommend a food scale (I have THIS one, and it works great). Just because we can eat
the things we enjoy, does not give us a green light to eat crap all the time or
to eat premade, boxed foods that already have our macros information in it!
Remember, we are trying to meet our macros nutrients and caloric intake by
eating clean, healthy foods, but by still allowing for our favorites, as long
as it “fits” into our day!
Educate yourself
on the best foods to fuel your body, plan your day to include awesome,
heart-healthy, muscle building goodies, and you should usually have room for
that small bowl of ice cream, a snack here and there, and lots of other things
that make you feel like a human!
Pinterest has
some awesome ideas on macros calculating, and can be found by entering “IIFYM”
into the search bar. But this is the most important part to remember—you do not
consume ANYTHING without tracking it! You’ll quickly learn just how much
nutrients are in your food (or isn’t in your food…)! It’s a real eye opener!
A couple of
tricks I have learned is to stick to the same foods/portions several times per
week, and to enter the foods into your food diary as you are making/prepping
them, so you’re not wasting time searching for foods and determining portions
when you’re actually eating them. Plus it’s more incentive for you to stick to
what you had planned! So for instance, if I do my food prep on Sundays, I can
go to Monday and actually enter all of my food for my meal plan in there, so
all I have to do is follow my diary! No excuses to eat outside of it if it’s
already entered and prepped right??
So give it a shot and see what happens!
